


No Regrets

by Wizardheart83 (Plant_Murderer)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death from Old Age, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:43:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plant_Murderer/pseuds/Wizardheart83
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years and years and lifetimes have passed since the epilogue and Harry and Hermione are visiting Ron's grave for the first time together, to grieve but also to find the love and forgiveness that they need to move forward.  (if you really need to know the pairings, i'll put them in a note inside)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> pairings are in the end note, but i recommend just reading it.

Time has passed, as it was always going to, as it always must. Time has passed and it has taken so many loved ones with it. Each year it blows through bringing children and grandchildren and dancing around new headstones. They are dancing around a new headstone those two, over there, for given definitions of dancing. 

A wind pushes the graying fringe from a wrinkled brow. A scar, never faded, identifies one of them. Harry Potter, Father of Lily Luna who is nicknamed “The woman who conquered” for her deeds as Minister of Magic, father also of Albus Severus and James Sirius, who live ecstatically happy lives and keep fresh flowers on the graves of their grandparents, mother, and uncles. One more grave to tend now, four more hands to help. Beside Harry is Hermione, and we know her by the company she keeps but also by her hands which have held back injustice for an age and are still strong even now as she stands over the grave of her husband and best friend. 

Time has passed; nearly a month as she grieved and gathered strength to make her way here. She’d missed the funeral to tend to young great grandchildren. She hadn’t wanted to see them put him silent into the ground after years of loving loudly, of shouting acceptance for differences that they’d shouted at with derision as children. Their home had not been quiet, no proper Weasley home was, but it was joyful as all Weasley homes should always be, proper or not. Molly had been proud. 

Moving closer, they seem to grow as the distance is shortened. They don’t notice anything but the odd and sad sense that they are, all three of them, together again, but not. Now they are alone, their children are grown and have children. Their spouses are dead. After a fashion, they are related. They married into the same family and their children are cousins. After a fashion, they are not related, and are nearly the same friends that they were before they said I dos to red haired heroes with too much love and too few siblings to be perfectly happy even in this time of well earned peace. 

“We can move on now, you know,” Harry says. “I don’t think that they’d hate us for it.” 

“I don’t believe that they would,” Hermione replies, “I don’t think that it matters.” 

“We’ve been so good, all these years. Such good friends and parents.” 

Hermione nods but then squeezes her eyes closed, pushing back tears for a moment. “I miss him. His mispronouncing muggle words so we’d have things to argue over. His eyes when he looked at our babies and grands. He’d be happy. Wouldn’t want life to stop, but I’d almost rather like for life to stop. We knew, he knew, it was coming but it does hurt a bit. Stupid arse argues with me every day of his life, then strolls peacefully off with death. All but makes an appointment he does. Are you so sure you’re still death’s master?” 

“Maybe Ron learned more than we give him credit for,” Harry sighs, “I miss him too. I keep expecting him to come popping out of somewhere, him and Ginny both, to say that it’s all been a dream, and the years are ours to live again.” 

They shuffle their feet, stepping idly and not really going anywhere. 

Harry conjures a wreath of flowers and sets it down among others. 

“Would still spend them with her?” Hermione asks and she can ask, because it’s been years and not weeks. Harry cannot ask it back. 

“I loved her, and I don’t regret a moment. I love our children. But if I had it to do again, and I could still have them? Maybe not. I don’t think she’d have wanted to live a second life with me either.” 

“Me neither,” Hermione says. “Ron, I love you, but if I could live again I’d be with Him. And it would make you so angry, and I hope I haven’t broken your heart. I hope your heart is safe from me now, and know I’ll never regret us, but I could have had a different life with Him, not better, but with such a sweet sort of …. Sort of difference.” 

“They won’t hate us,” Harry tells her.“They’ll forgive us because they love us.” 

“Merlin, I hope you’re right,” Hermione says. She looks down at the grave and whispers something, some final plea for forgiveness perhaps then she straightens, looks deep into Harry’s eyes and says something entirely different. 

“She’s waiting at the gate over there and… how did she know?!” 

Luna Scamander nee Lovegood is standing beside the gate to the cemetery and with her is Neville Longbottom, recently retired from a long career at Hogwarts.

Harry walks over and reaches out for Luna’s hand. “I’m sorry I made you wait, but I needed to be with him at the end and-"

“Harry Potter, “ She scolds him, “I am not mad that you put off our date because needed to take care of your best friend. They are so happy for us, I know. We’ll see them again, and you’ll know too.” 

She kisses him, and it’s not ok that Ginny Potter lies in the earth not far from her brother and from them, her husband and best friend who will go forward in life together, but it actually is ok. Everything happens in time, and time has passed. 

Hermione and Neville hold hands . He will not ask her out to dinner at this moment, but within a week they will go, and none of them are young enough to fall in love slowly, and they will live and love happily until time comes for them too. 

Reunited in a life beyond life, it will not matter who loved first, or longer, or more. No vows were broken. There will be no regret. In the end there will only be love.

**Author's Note:**

> this story is harry/ luna; hermione/ neville in the end, but still canon compliant. 
> 
> I know recent news concerning regrets has made for craziness, and i'mma let that finish, but the books have been published and they were about so much more than that. They are about love and death, and maybe about regrets too, but not regret for having loved, never that.


End file.
